


American Gothic

by theironrosebud



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Autobiographical Elements, Eventual Romance, F/M, Graphic Violence, Horror, Light Angst, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Not Canon Compliant, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Playlist, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Slow Burn, Survivor Guilt, you can tell I'm from the midwest
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-19
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-14 21:07:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 18,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29548368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theironrosebud/pseuds/theironrosebud
Summary: The man on the radio didn’t warn against the living the same he did the dead, but it went without saying: after the end of the world, there wasn’t a single thing left that wasn’t a monster. The Dead and The Living were both things to be feared. A tragedy teaches a solitary young woman, Quick, that she is no exception.Daryl Dixon has been wandering on his own with Dog for some time until he comes across Quick’s remote property and, subsequently, Quick. Each is haunted by their own troubles, but together, they discover what words like “survival” and “death” really mean in the world that remains after the end.
Relationships: Daryl Dixon/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 24
Kudos: 22





	1. nasty weather

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bad Mood Rising by Creedence Clearwater Revival

She struck it in the side of its face with her shovel. The horrible rotten thing twisted away and staggered before reaching for her again. The left half of its face was caved in. She grunted, and swung again.

Quick remembered the first week of the outbreak. She watched it menially on TV, after a day of chores, saw the reporters in front of hospitals where people were coming down with terrible fevers. Researchers scrambled; conspiracy theorists lost their shit.

It didn’t really seem that out of the ordinary to her. City folk were always like that, weren’t they? Quick lived practically off the grid, the way her grandparents had when they first built their house in the sixties. Anything beyond their fence line was none of their business as long as taxes got paid.

But as the weeks passed, the world outside became harder and harder to ignore. Regular programs were interrupted every five minutes with another warning or announcement about public health and safety, until the crisis reporting was non-stop.

This time when she brought down the blade of the shovel, she split its head like an axe. Its blood was too coagulated to splatter on her face. Were it a living thing, bright red would have covered her.

She wasn’t a doomsday prepper by any means, and neither had her grandparents been, but they liked being self-sufficient, and so that’s how Quick continued to live when they passed away. In fact, the only change she really made after their death was to put in the satellite dish for TV, so she’d have more than her grandfather’s radios. It turned out that the radio was more valuable than the TV in the end.

She couldn’t remember exactly when the TV finally cut out, but it inevitably did. Static hummed on the screen for a few days until it flickered to black eternal, all the while she tried to set up the radios again. (She only ever recalled her grandpa using them to talk to the neighbors and truckers, just for kicks. She was never quite as savvy with them as he was.)

When she was sure it was dead-dead, Quick dropped the shovel in the grass, and hauled the thing by its leg to her waiting wheelbarrow.

The day she got the radio repaired and tuned, she found a short broadcast announcing that major cities were bombed by the National Guard in an attempt to contain the spread of disease; and, before she could curse or ask herself why, she heard exactly what the illness was doing to people. The dead didn’t stay dead anymore. The infected decayed like rotten bodies and started bitin’. People were dying then living and dying again.

“Go for the head,” the radioman said, “Go for the head, and don’t get bit.”

Sweat dripped down her back with each step behind the wheelbarrow until the back of her grey tank top was wetted through. She let down the cart just long enough to wipe her forehead with the back of her hand before pressing on.

After fixing the radio, Quick tried to tune in at least once daily when her chores were done; sometimes the man was broadcasting and sometimes he wasn’t. Sometimes he broadcasted a recording on a loop. Thanks to him, she learned how to kill biters, how to hide from them, how the bite changed them. She learned loud sounds attracted them, and that she should keep her windows blacked out. The man said to stay in groups, but to trust no one. He said there were safe havens in cities, but that the cities were dangerous. The lone woman started to realize how lucky she was to be living in her own secret world.

When she finally reached the burn pile, she dumped the biter onto the sticks and pulled a match from her pocket. She lit the nasty fucker up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to my first walking dead fic! I'm very excited about it because this is my first time writing non-fantasy horror. 
> 
> For this fic, each chapter will coincide with a song that inspired a scene. I will put the track and artist in the chapter summaries. You can listen to the playlist here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/78gwbcducJLmfQVpbBQtWv?si=07L-vxYlRIGNjv80QWkIXw
> 
> As always, I invite you to comment and let me know your thoughts.


	2. Death is in my view

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wildflower Perfume by The Dead Tongues

The walk from the smouldering fire back to the house was short. Her mud boots trekked faithfully behind her wheelbarrow past the barn, the busted windmill, and to the garage. The garage’s door was open, letting a little sunlight penetrate the lonesome vehicles. Sunshine glinted against the spotless, silver bumper of a vintage Chevy Camaro and threw reflected rays up against the dusty, worn paint of its roommate, the pickup truck, Louise. Quick marched passed the open door, rapping her knuckles fondly against Louise’ tailgate (for good luck), before pushing on to the vegetable garden.

Quick found her abandoned shovel between patches of tomatoes, and threw it into the wheelbarrow. A few tomatoes lay crushed and bloodied on the ground by her feet. She leaned down, and picked them up too before throwing them by the vine into the pasture. She didn’t want that biter’s rot anywhere near her food. Once she felt the patch resembled the way it had been before the biter interrupted her gardening, she worked her way over to the water pump.

She gave the well a few pumps before cool, clean water gushed over her dirty hands. Quick wasn’t in the habit of bathing regularly; hauling buckets of water from the well to the stopped up bathtub indoors was an event, and one she didn’t prefer going through after a day of hard work. But damn if she didn’t feel like she needed it after killing a biter! The things made her skin crawl.

She could always smell ‘em before she saw ‘em-- aching decay drifting through the air, like a cat that had crawled up into an engine and died there. Then the sound of it came next. The deafening groan, the trudge of uneven footsteps that put a pit in her stomach. She remembered the first one she ever put down. It came down on her faster than she thought a dead thing could move. She’d killed it with a pocket knife. She couldn’t stop throwing up after. At least, now she could keep the bile down; she just felt dirty as mud.

Quick frowned to herself as she shook water droplets from her hands. The homesteader didn’t see much of them, being as far from society as she was, but every once in a while, a random biter wandered through her land looking for food. They rarely came close to the house, and she’d never seen more than two at once. She wasn’t an experienced tracker, but she checked her fences now and again to see how they’d gotten in (barbed wire wasn’t exactly the Great Wall of China); if there was a break, it wasn’t hard to find-- the biters left gnawed on game in their tracks. Lately, however she’d seen biters more frequently, getting closer to the house with each encounter. It made her uneasy.

This place had been heaven in a world that had gone to hell. Quick didn’t know what she would have done without it. It had been her grandparents before it had been hers, born from their own hands, raised by the sweat of their backs. She made them a promise that she’d take care of it for them. What would she do without it? she thought.

The woman righted herself and squinted into the sun. She didn’t have much daylight left now. Dealing with the biter had wasted time she had planned on using to fix the broken windmill.

The windmill generated just enough electricity to power the radio and the stovetop, but it hadn’t run right since the last rainstorm. She hadn’t risked turning on the radio since for fear that it would die on her. The growing silence was all but unbearable.

Quick wasn’t the most social creature, but it hadn’t been the same since the end of the world. She liked hearing the radioman, even if it was all looped broadcasts now. He didn’t tell her anything she didn’t already know by now, but the sound of someone else’s voice echoing through her house took the edge off at night. Sometimes when he broadcasted, she chatted back. If anyone asked, she’d call him her friend.

The woman found herself at the base of the windmill looking up. A breeze ruffled flyaway hairs across her face as she watched the top of the little wind turbine creak but not spin.

“Fuck.”

After checking the base of the generator for what was probably the tenth time this week, she grunted with the confirmation that she would have to climb the structure. Whatever the problem was, it was up there, where the sweet ground met the unforgiving sky.

Quick did not like climbing things. She saw her grandpa fall off a ladder once, when he was fixing the roof. It hadn’t killed him, but it looked like it should have. All Quick could think about was falling off this damned mill.

‘Don’t look down,’ is always what they said in movies, but that was impossible in real life. Q needed to look down to find her footholds, and she hated it. She knew she was only five feet from the ground, but it looked farther. From here she could break an ankle, an arm, her back, crack her skull. The ball of her foot slipped in her boot; one rubber galosh sailed down to the waiting grass. She hoisted herself up by another couple of feet, one foot bare, before the fan of the mill was level to her head.

A fucking bird’s nest-- sturdy little structure was wedged in between the flat blades of the turbine, blown in by the recent storm. It took some muscle, but she wrestled it out and unceremoniously dropped it to the ground. Birds were resourceful little things, they’d make a new one. She gave the blades an experimental spin. Perfect. She began her descent.

Above her head the windmill changed directions with a sudden gust, and the blades spun frantically, harvesting energy it had been so thirsty for. Below it, Quick choked. Her knuckles on the metal scaffolding turned white.

  
The air smelled like rot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick's grandfather and the man on the radio are both based on my great grandfather. My great grandfather was a radioman during WWII, and he talked to people all over the world on his radios at home until he died last year. He was 95 years old.


	3. Feeding on fever

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wolf Like Me ft. Shovels & Rope

The following weeks passed quickly. Quick spent the days from sun-up to sun-down gardening, milking her last living goat, Dorthy, and checking snares for the rare rabbit. She canned tomatoes and dried herbs. She made soap and candles. If she hadn’t run out of sugar a long time ago, she would have made strawberry jam or canned peaches. At the end of the day, when the work was done, if she didn’t bathe, she sat by the radio. It was good to have company again, even if it wasn’t real. 

“Go for the head, and don’t get bit,” he said. “If you get bit, the fever comes. You’re a goner--”

“--Never was a man who didn’t turn after the bite,” Quick said at the same time as the radioman. 

Fortunately, she hadn’t seen many more biters after the last one that came through. She certainly hadn’t seen whatever mass of them caused the reeking smell on the southbound wind the day she fixed her mill. Lucky. 

The voice on the radio fell to the background, describing techniques for killing biters “quick and clean-like”, while she got to peeling tomatoes. The kitchen knife sliced through the skin in an X. She placed each one in the water to reach a boil. After that, the skin would slip off easy enough and she could hand crush them. 

The burning candle on the countertop next to her pot cast it’s warm gaze on her face, and then to the faded yellow wall paper behind her. Her eyebrows creased with focus, and her fingers nimbly turned over tomato after tomato until a whole vine’s worth was boiling. Her tongue worked a mint leaf into the back of her mouth, curbing the hunger. She’d lost a lot of weight since this whole thing started, not being able to eat whenever she was hungry without having to think about saving for the future. She was changing. 

White light from the full moon crept in through cracks in the shutters. Outside, a breeze picked up and knocked the porch swing against the house. 

“Don’t waste your bullets if you got a gun,” the radioman said, “the noise’ll only bring in more ‘til you’re dead in the water.”

The tomatoes were crushed and in their jars when the first shadow passed over her window. Quick thought she was imagining it, but something about the slats in the shutters sent a shiver down her spine. She turned down the volume dial on the radio until it was nearly off. The sound of still-boiling water filled the room. It was awfully quiet to be a biter. This one wasn’t growling or moaning like they usually did. 

Through the open doorway to the living room, she watched another shadow pass. Her grip on the kitchen knife tightened until her knuckles cracked. The blade glinted in the candlelight. A biter had never come this close to the house before. The closest they’d ever gotten was the garden. 

Quick tiptoed through the darkness, circling the bottom floor of the house. Kitchen, living room, front entryway. The windows on the front door were shuttered, so she couldn’t see through them, and much light wasn’t escaping the house. She wondered what had drawn it this close. She crouched on her knees, trying to peer up the slats, squinting against the moonlight. She took a slow, deep inhale. There was no decay in the air. 

Level to her eyes, the doorknob turned. Quick swallowed hard, prepared to strike. They yanked on the door hard, and she flinched. They yanked again. The door was locked. 

The door rattled a couple more times, before Quick heard a deep sigh from the other side. 

“Shit.” It wasn’t a walker. It was a person. 

The footsteps tracked to the window in the other room. They rattled the shutters. 

Before they had time to shatter the glass window, Quick stood up straight and unlocked the door with one hand. Knife behind her back, she swung the door open and came set one foot out on the porch. She took in the sight of the traveler with wide eyes and parted lips. There was a man, grubby and bloody, a backpack on his shoulders. One of his hands was still on the shutter. He looked as startled as Quick felt. 

He stood not quite six feet tall, and his form was thin but muscular like a runner. His clothes hung loose on his shoulders.  _ A coyote _ , Quick thought. 

“Well, hello,” he said, unmoving. 

Quick remembered herself.

“You’re trespassing,” she snapped. 

He raised his arm in surrender. Quick’s fingers were like a vice on her hidden knife. 

“Is this your house?” he asked. 

“I want you off my property,” her tongue lashed quick as a whip. 

“Wait,” he said, “I don’t want any trouble. Just a place to camp for the night, that’s all.” 

_ Never was a man who didn’t turn after the bite. _

“Are you bit?” she asked. 

“No, I ain’t bit. Promise.” The man was shaking his head. He read her disbelieving expression keenly and added, “I’d be feverish by now if I was. Look.”

He stepped forward, so the light from the open doorway shined on his face. Quick took an instinctive step backwards, wanting to stay out of reach, but also not wanting to give him any ground. He slowed. His face wasn’t flushed. He was dirty, but no sweat glistened on his forehead. His eyes were seeing. There was a bruise on the side of his face, but it was fading. 

_ Stay in groups, but trust no one.  _

“Are you alone?”

“Yes,” he shook his head. 

After another moment of careful consideration, she nodded her head. “Just the night.”

Quick moved to re-enter her house. He moved to follow. Quick gave him a searing glance, and he halted. 

“You ain’t coming inside,” she said.

“If you leave me out here, I’m good as dead,” he said. 

Quick’s insides turned at the thought of someone in her house. This was  _ her _ space, and hers alone, for years now. Besides, why should he need to come inside? Hadn’t he been camping outside until this point anyways? His gaze had her pinned. Every ounce of self-preservation in her body told her to say no. 

“You’re gone by morning, I mean it.”

“Thank you,” he sighed. 

She spun the knife’s handle in her hand so that her thumb was at the blade, not the backhanded, fighting grip she had on it before. 

“You gotta weapon on you?” she asked. 

He was stepping into the kitchen with her now, eyes wandering shamelessly over her jars. The presence of a second body in her home made her feel uncomfortable, like there wasn’t enough space. How three people managed to live here before, Quick didn’t know. 

“Just a knife,” he said. 

He pulled it out of his pocket, and set it on the table. It was a folded pocket knife, no good for anything more than carving soap. S. D. was engraved on the handle. 

“You been living here alone this whole time?” he asked her, wonder seeping into his tone. “Just you?”

Quick forced herself to nod. She wasn’t used to… making conversation. 

“What’s your name?” 

“Jude.”

“You don’t have a group, Jude?” she asked him. 

“Used to,” he said, shrugging his shoulders, nonchalantly. “They’re gone now. We were trying to get to Wolf Creek, and they got swarmed by walkers.” 

“Walkers?”

“The dead,” he clarified, giving her a look. 

“You mean the biters,” Quick said. 

“They walk,” he defended. 

“They bite, too,” Quick smirked, “Better than they walk.”

“What happened to you?” she asked. 

“Oh, this?” he gestured to the bruise. “I fell in the woods.”

The radio was quiet now, the broadcast dying off. She flicked the dial to put out the static sound. She heard the man inhale and exhale deeply, weary from travelling wherever he’d been. He was across the room, but it still made the hair on her neck stand on end. The sound might as well have been a devil’s whisper in her ear. She shivered. 

“And the rest of it?” she asked. 

“Huh?”

“The blood,” she pointed to the black stains crusted on his shirt. 

“It’s not mine,” he said. 

She squinted at him suspiciously before nodding her head towards the other doorway. 

“You can camp in there,” she pointed. “Living room.” 

The man peered through the doorway and into the low lighting of the room. The ratty couch and her grandfather’s recliner were still there, where they’d always been. The TV stand had been pushed into one corner. There was a fireplace, but it wasn’t lit. On the wall next to it hung three pelts. Two coyotes. One fox. 

Quick watched him pause in the center of the living room floor. He shrugged the backpack off his shoulders, but he didn’t settle. He was studying her framed photographs. She shifted on her feet. 

“Must be nice,” he said, looking over his shoulder at her. “Home sweet home after everything that’s happened.” 

Quick paused. Something about the implicating tone made her feel sick. She forced herself to look blank. 

“I’m a lucky one,” she said. 

Something flashed behind his eyes, but he reigned it in. Quick would have thought it was imagined, if it wasn’t for his fist. At his side, his hand was clenched so tight the knuckles were white. 

She thought of the knife on her kitchen table. She thought of  _ his _ knife on her kitchen table. Stainless steel from both glinting in the moonlight. She was suddenly glad it wasn’t in his hand. The tension in the air was thick like smoke, and it made her lungs still more than the smell of any biter- walker- ever did. They looked at each other for a few more aching moments. 

She turned her back to him and went to the candles in the kitchen. She blew them out. Quick felt his piercing eyes on her back. 

“Goodnight,” she said softly. 

He nodded. “Goodnight,” he said. 

She slunk away from her kitchen, taking his knife with her. She locked the front door before escaping up the stairs to her own sparsely decorated bedroom, tomatoes forgotten. 


	4. I think he did it

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No body, no crime ft. HAIM by Taylor Swift

Quick had been sitting in the dark of her bedroom for hours now contemplating the man in her living room, her eyes gently closed. She didn’t like him, and she sure as hell didn’t trust him. Something about the way he looked at her, looked at her house, like it was a treat he couldn’t wait to sink his teeth into, set her off. The pocket knife turned between her fingers while she replayed every moment, every uttered syllable since he walked through her door like they were tabs on a rolodex. 

He had a knife that belonged to someone named S.D. 

He was covered in blood.

He had a bruise on half his face. 

His group was dead. (“Dead” was a loose term these days; he was here, and they weren’t.) 

He had anger inside him. 

He wanted to kill her. 

Quick’s hands fumbled. Her eyes shot open, and the knife landed on the floor with a thunk. She held her breath. Down stairs, all was quiet, and she wondered briefly if he’d actually gone to sleep. She leaned over the edge of her mattress and fished the knife off the floor. 

The floorboards creaked. 

Quick knew what anger looked like on a man. She’d seen it in his face, in his clenched fists. He  _ was going to _ kill her. And she was running out of time. 

She didn’t waste a moment daydreaming about what-ifs. She didn’t curse herself for letting him into her house or imagine a normal world where she could call a Sheriff to arrest him for breaking in. (If her grandpa were here, he’d have shot him himself right there on the porch, but Quick couldn’t shoot, and even if she could, it would draw walkers in.) She was stuck here with an angry man, and she needed to decide what she wanted to do about that before it was too late to do anything. 

There was one truth crawling closer and closer in the shrouding darkness that she was avoiding. It pressed close like four walls caving in, pinning her to her mattress, breathing down her neck: She could kill him, murder him before he murdered her. Self-defense ahead of schedule. The very thought, filled her with fear, like she was back on top of that windmill with one boot on her foot. Quick hadn’t killed another person before, and she didn’t want to. Biters- Walkers- whatever they were called- they were different. They weren’t people. They weren’t living. They were nothing more than a hungry body. Killing someone who was alive would be different… harder. 

Had it been harder for him, she wondered, killing a group of living people?

Downstairs the floorboards creaked again. He was up and moving. He was done waiting. She heard him circle through the kitchen first, looking for the knife probably. She looked down at it, and flicked it open hesitantly. The woman let her feet meet the floor softly. The wood beams were quiet beneath her. She wiped a sweaty hand on her pant leg. Squeezing her eyes shut, she weighed her odds. 

He was tall but undernourished. She might have the strength to take him on… maybe. Quick wasn’t much of a fighter, but she could scrap. She had no formal self-defense training, but she knew how to throw a punch and stab biters. Hopefully that would be enough to get her through tonight. She just needed to survive tonight. 

Quick stood in front of her closed bedroom door now. Her chest rose and fell with every shaking breath. The knife’s handle pressed tightly against the skin of her palm. The house was silent as her free hand met the cold door knob. It turned. 

She knew he was at the bottom of her stairs before she opened the door. Seeing his shadow there sent a chill through her anyways. 

“Come on down, little girl,” he said. “I don’t want any trouble.”

“I think you should leave,” she said, swallowing hard. 

“You know I can’t do that,” he said, reading her mind. “Not while you’ve still got something of mine.” 

The blade in her hand felt warm, like it was alive. She needed to know. 

“Who’s S.D.?” she asked, stepping into the moonlight. 

The shade made the bruises on his face look even darker. He was a thing from nightmares: monstrous, grotesque. 

“Come down and I’ll tell you.”

“Tell me now,” she said. Her heart was in her throat. The pulse in her ears was loud enough for her to count each beat. 

“I’m done playing games,” he replied. 

Reaching into his waistband, he pulled out a revolver. The hammer clicked back into place. Quick’s blood froze. 

“Get down here, or I’ll shoot you.”

In a moment, her whole world changed. Quick took the first step down the staircase, then the second, then the third and so on until she was chest to chest with the man. 

“That wasn’t so hard, was it?” he grinned. “Come on.” 

He took the knife from her hands, hauled her into the living room by the bicep. 

“Kneel.”

Quick obeyed. Her knees met the cool wood of the living room floor.

The gunmetal shone in the light peeking through her shutters. She’d never had a gun pointed at her before, she thought absently. Any hope she’d had of fighting back fled the second she saw it. Everything was different now. Quick had looked death in the face before. She had seen decay, rot, disease. She had felt the adrenaline in her veins and been close enough to bite. But this wasn’t the same. Suddenly, everything was so much more fragile. This time, the death she faced wasn’t someone else’s, it was her own. She felt empty. 

“Who’s S.D.?” she repeated numbly. 

He chuckled. He dropped the knife on the floor, and Quick flinched. The tip of the knife was stuck in the boards, handle up. 

“Sloane was in our group. She was pretty, looked just like you, actually.” 

Bile rose in Quick’s throat. 

“She wasn’t cut out for this survivalist shit. She cried all the time, whining about how she wanted to go home.” 

“Did she give you that bruise?” Quick asked automatically. 

“Nah,” he shook his head. “This was Lisa. You see, Sloane ran, and she ran. But when I finally caught up and choked the life out of her, I saw it in her eyes. She was grateful… because I finally sent her home.

“For a while after that I was okay. The group believed me when I said walkers took her. But after a couple weeks, I started to get this itch in my hands, and I knew I was gonna do it again. Lisa was a pretty girl too, but she wasn’t like Sloane. Lisa put up a hell of a fight. When she hit me,” he whistled, “I was so mad, I didn’t even think before I buried that knife in her gut.”

Quick’s eyes fixed to the knife in the floor. It resonated. 

Practically, the thing was too far out of reach; he’d shoot her before she would be able to grab it. But she stared hard at it while her stomach roiled as if just her gaze would be enough to bring it closer to her fingertips. 

“You killed all of them,” she said, turning her face up to him. “The whole group.”

He said nothing, he just chuckled. 

“So what now?” she wondered softly. 

“I don’t know,” he shrugged, same nonchalance as earlier that night. “I haven’t decided.” 

He crouched in front of her at eye level. In the dark, his gaze was almost black compared to her shining eyes. 

“Do I want to wrap my hands around your pretty neck and squeeze?”

His hand graced her temple and she flinched. 

“Do I want to stab you until there’s more red outside your body than inside it?”

Tears finally slipped out of her eyes, and turned her face away. He leaned in and used the barrel of the gun to move a strand of hair out of her face. 

“Or do I want to shoot you in the fucking head?”

He stood back and rocked on his feet. 

“Please don’t do this,” she asked. “You can still go, leave me here.”

He roared and pistol whipped her. Quick’s head collided with the ground in front of her before she registered the pain. Blood dripped onto the black floor. She couldn’t tell where it was coming from. 

“Leave you here?” 

His reckless volume made her ears pulse. The room rocked. 

“You’re a selfish bitch, keeping this place all to yourself, you know that! I did Sloane and Lisa a favor sending them home--”

“Please!” 

Quick’s own wretched voice sounded like an echo.

“But you  _ are _ lucky, I don’t have to send you anywhere! You get to die here!” 

Her eyes met the knife in the floor, and her ears rung. She lunged but it was too late. The bullet missed her head and ripped through her shoulder. The force of it sent her back into the floor. Her head smacked the boards a second time. This time, she tasted the blood in her mouth. She scrambled for a minute waiting for the second shot to fire. He didn’t have another bullet. 

Quick didn’t hear his pounding footsteps as he approached her, or his knees meeting the floor when he climbed on top of her. Her legs were pinned together in between his knees. His hands were on her throat, tightening and tightening. She saw black spots on the ceiling, on his face. His bruised skin twisted in fury. 

The ringing--

Her palm flattened on the floor, searching for the knife. Where was the fucking knife?

Her fingertips stung. She grabbed it by the blade first, and then--

She had it by the handle. She drove it into his back, into his ribs. Blood poured out and soaked her hand. Her fingertips slipped on the handle, but she didn’t let go. She stabbed him over and over again. 

He coughed once and blood speckled her face and her floor. The ringing stopped and, for a second, the world was mute. The pressure was gone from her neck, but his limp, wet body crushed her. Her lungs expanded and contracted rapidly; there wasn’t enough air in the room. She heard herself sobbing openly. She shoved the body off of her. 

She was on the porch now. Her shoulder was still bleeding and her face throbbed. She listened to herself gasp for air. Her sobs echoed across the lawn and faded into the symphony of insects. The sun peaked over the horizon, and the sky faded from pink to purple to blue. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it's weird that we haven't met Daryl yet, but he is coming very soon, I promise.


	5. Coming home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tired as Fuck by The Staves

Moving his body from the house was a blur. She went into the woods with him and came back without him. Everything between was blank. The living room Quick returned to later was empty, save for the blood. 

She went upstairs first. She threw up and, when she was done, swallowed two Tylenol from an expired bottle under the sink. The bullet in her arm wasn’t very deep. She dug it out with her fingertips and gave herself some shitty stitches with an embroidery needle from her grandma’s sewing box. She didn’t look at herself in the mirror. 

Her head pounded, but she didn’t want to sleep. She was afraid if she slept, she wouldn’t wake up again, so she pressed on. 

The sun was high in the sky when she started cleaning the living room with some bleach she found in the cellar, and she scrubbed on her hands and knees until the sun faded to black. The floor was red. Her hands were red. The water in the pail was red. Eventually it wasn’t and the floor was clean. She went upstairs and slept. 

Quick didn’t know how long she slept, but it was light out when she woke up. Feeling returned to her body with the force of a storm. Everything hurt. She took more tylenol, and put her arm in a sling. 

During the day, Quick worked herself to the bone outdoors, weeding her garden and feeding Dorthy. She waited for walkers to come, but they never did. The house stood like an omen behind her and casted growing shadows over the vegetable patch. Quick sighed and scratched absentmindedly at her hair. When she pulled her fingertips away, there was dried blood under her fingernails. She didn’t know if it was hers or Jude’s. Sparing a weary glance down at her clothes, Quick saw that her jeans were crusted with mud and her shirt had bleach stains. She needed to bathe, but she didn’t have the strength to haul water with one arm. Instead, she stripped down outside in the light of the fading sun and rinsed off under the water pump. 

That night, she ate a dinner of tomatoes and milk on the front porch. Her shoulder length hair dried in the soft late summer breeze. The stars glinted through the black sky, and Quick finally retreated into the poor structure. She didn’t step foot in the living room, and she didn’t look at her bruised face in the mirror. The bed creaked under her collapsing weight. Her dark eyelashes kissed her cheeks, and sleep consumed her. 

She was standing in the living room. Light was pouring in the open windows, yellow splashing the faded walls. Quick looked around. It was clean, pleasant, the way it used to be. She smelled cinnamon and peaches. 

“Curly Q, is that you?” 

It was her grandmother’s voice, calling her from the kitchen. 

“Gammy?” she called back. 

“Come in here and give me a hand, sweetpea.”

Quick saw the old woman facing the kitchen sink, the strings of her blue and white gingham apron tied criss-cross across her back. She approached the open doorway. Looking down at the line separating the kitchen from the living room, she paused. She took a breath and stepped over it. Her grandmother turned her head over her shoulder and smiled. Quick smiled back. 

Cinnamon syrup was simmering on the stove top. Next to it on the countertop was a big pile of peaches. Her grandma had a kitchen knife in hand. 

“Help me cut some of these up, will you?” she asked. 

The blade knocked against the butcher’s block while the pile of peach pits subtly grew. 

Quick looked around for a knife of her own. 

“Here, sweetpea, use this,” her grandmother said, handing her the kitchen knife. 

When Quick’s slender fingers wrapped around it, it changed. The blade shortened, and the handle changed colors. Quick dropped it like it burned her. On the counter was a bloody pocket knife. It said S.D. 

The young woman shook her head. 

“I don’t wanna use that, Gammy,” she said, trembling. 

“C’mon, don’t make a fuss,” her grandma said, not losing a touch of sweetness to her voice. 

Quick tried to take a step back but she was frozen. “How do you have that?”

“Pick up the knife,” the old woman said. The smile on her face never wavered. 

The scene grew dark, the sun setting outside casted shadows in the house. Her grandmother was still slicing peaches. The cinnamon syrup bubbled.

“Pick up the knife, Q,” she said. 

The stained blade still lay on the counter. Quick spared a glance at her grandmother’s hands. Her old, knobby fingers were wrapped around the pocket knife. It’s handle also said S.D. There were two of them. 

Quick fumbled, “I can’t- I- you-”

“What’s the matter, dear?” her grandmother asked. “It worked just fine last night.”

Quick heard a quiet squirt and looked down at her grandmother’s apron. It was stained red. The peach in her hands was bleeding. 

“Gammy, you’re-”

Her grandmother looked down, and laughed. “Oh, would you look at that? I made a mess!” Her wrinkled hands smeared at the bloodstain but it only grew. She looked up and gave Quick a knowing expression, “Though, it’s nothing like the mess you made in my living room.” The old woman continued to laugh. 

Quick shook her head, and tried to back away again. Her breath came in quick pants but it wasn’t enough for her to catch her breath. She squeezed her eyes shut. 

This isn’t real, she thought. None of this is real. 

When she opened her eyes, she was yards away, in the living room. She could still see her grandmother in the light of the kitchen stirring a pot of rancid syrup, head thrown back. The old woman’s laugh echoed through the house. Outside the windows, there was a rumbling like thunder. The shutters shook, and Quick thought the walls were going to cave in. The young woman turned in place, looking for escape, looking for light, looking for a place that wasn’t haunted by blood. 

She came face to face with Jude. 

“Who’s S.D.?” he asked, his voice dripping with fake concern. 

A third version of the knife materialized in her hands. The man lunged, and Quick felt the knife plunge into his back just before-- 

Quick woke up with a gasp. Her face was tear soaked. 

The thunderous sound was coming from downstairs. Someone was banging on the house. 

She kicked the sheets that had tangled around her legs onto the floor. Her heart pounded in her chest, her throat, her ears. She fled down the stairs like the house was on fire. Ripping open the front door, she was met with three walkers fighting to get in, drawn by the sound of her screaming in her sleep. They saw the living woman and growled. Goosebumps raised on the bare skin not covered by Quick’s tanktop and underwear. She stumbled back and ran to the kitchen for anything to plunge into the monsters. She skipped over the knife block, and rummaged through the junk drawer instead. 

When she returned, the first one was stumbling in over her threshold. She drove a screwdriver through its eye and shoved it backwards into the next one that was trying to get it. It fell backwards from the force of her shove, and she jumped on it, taking it out swiftly. When she stood to face the third, she froze. 

For a second it looked like him. Its face was bruised and bloody. She blinked hard, and the biter changed. It wasn’t him. It was different, older. Its clothes were different. She drove the tool into the last one without reservation. 

When all three were dead, she stumbled back into her house and closed the door, clicking the deadbolt into place. The screwdriver slipped from her hands, and she scrambled to the living room. Falling to her knees, she wailed and clutched her chest. She broke down, unrestrained. 

The room smelled like bleach and worn wood. 

Her grandmother wasn’t there anymore. The man who tried to execute her wasn’t there anymore. She was alone. The last woman standing. 

She killed that man, she mourned. She took the life of another living person, and a part of herself was dead inside too because of it. She promised, she promised she would take care of this house, and she  _ failed _ . She’d made a mess of it. She’d spilt blood within these walls, which was something she never thought she would do. She  _ failed _ . For a moment, Quick wished it had been her. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Gammy" is what I grew up calling my grandma. If I had used any other nickname for her, it would have felt super strange.


	6. April

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> April by The Lumineers

Quick started having more nightmares after that. 

She never used to have nightmares, not about walkers, not about anything. Now she had them all the time. She closed her eyes and she saw blood. Hell, sometimes she saw blood when she was awake, and there wasn’t really anything there. She saw the man’s face in the dark, heard his voice. Sometimes it ended with her dying, but usually it ended when she killed him just like she had in real life, always with the same knife. 

It was punishment, she thought, for what she did. 

It was early morning, around 3:00 A.M. She was outside on the porch with an axe this time waiting for the walkers to come. They could hear her every night now, screaming, all the way from the woods where they traveled. They would come out of the trees right up to the house until she came to. This time she woke up early in the dream; she was ready for them. 

Behind her, the house creaked. One shutter was open and she could see the glass behind it. Quick thought she saw something move behind the screen. She leaned in closer. A woman looked back at her. Tired, worn, pale like a ghost. It was a ghost, she thought. Her grandmother’s ghost has come to haunt her since the nightmares aren’t enough. 

On the other end of the porch, a biter growled. Quick was on her feet in a flash, raising the axe over her head. Standing two feet above it on the porch, she brought the weapon down hard on its face. It cleaved in half. Quick pulled the axe off and swayed slightly. She was tired, but she wouldn’t sleep. She sat back down on the porch swing and rocked. 

She glanced back at the glass window. 

The specter was gone. 

She would wait. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a couple more short chapters until we meet Daryl. Let me know what you think so far.


	7. Falling in love is so alone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> My Cell by The Lumineers

Quick wasn’t just haunted, she was cursed. 

In the following couple weeks, two thirds of her vegetable patch went to rot. She yielded as much as she could out of what remained, but the work had been hard and her body was weak. It scared her. Canning food was how she survived winters, especially since she wasn’t an avid hunter. If she ate one portion in summer, she canned seven more to save. Only this time, seven dwindled to five which dwindled to three. 

Unfortunately, supply wasn’t the only concern. She’d lost power too, meaning she didn’t have the heat to boil water. 

At present, Quick stood at the foot of her windmill. She turned her weary eyes up to the sky which swirled with gray clouds not quite dark enough to mean rain. The knee-high grass, dry and flaxen, rustled like waves in the wind. Above her head, the fan of the mill stayed dead still. Quick shivered. The winds were coming from the north now, carrying the cold with it, and it would only get worse from now on. She needed energy. 

She checked the generator first. Nothing was fried or disconnected. Everything was secure and clean. She looked up again. Wind was coming, it just wasn’t doing anything. 

_ You gotta climb it, girl _ , a voice in her head told her.  _ C’mon.  _

_ Alright,  _ she grunted,  _ I’m climbing.  _

She put her hands on the cold metal of the ladder’s lower rungs. Already, she felt a pull in her shoulder, but she couldn’t stop. One foot in front of the other, up and up. She was about half way there, but her arms were shaking so bad she had to pause. Her heart pounded. She folded her bad arm against her chest for a minute, clinging to the metal scaffolding with only one hand while she tried to catch her breath. When she was ready she took another step. Her foot slipped, and her weight dropped. The muscles in her shoulder screamed for a second, before she let go. She dropped about two feet before her face smacked against the mill and she fell the other three feet. 

She could have screamed. Hopelessness crushed her. She laid there on her back in the dead grass next to her  _ damned, cursed _ mill. She couldn’t tell if the clouds were swirling or if it was just the dizziness. A bruise was already blooming on her cheek. Quick felt so frustrated. She couldn’t do this anymore. She was too weak to live, but too lucky to die. 

_ You are lucky-  _

Quick pushed that voice away. She didn’t need to conjure him up now.

She laid there for a good while, until it was almost night time. She couldn’t climb it again, she didn’t have the strength. She already knew there wasn’t a critter’s nest up there anyways. Finally, the woman sat up, and made the grueling journey back to the house. 

Her head was pounding by the time she returned. Quick entered the house and tugged off her boots. She took off her coat and went upstairs. 

Two more expired tylenol. She was gonna run out soon if she kept injuring herself like this. 

The woman rummaged through her cabinets for something to eat before deciding it wasn’t worth it to open a can. With the headache she had, she’d probably only throw it up anyways. She drank water instead. 

That night, she dragged an extra blanket up to bed with her. She laid there, just as she had in the grass, staring at the ceiling. 

The floorboards below her creaked, but she paid no mind. Just ghosts, she thought. 


	8. Heaven's a julep on the porch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Julep by The Punch Brothers

Quick thought a lot about what Death was. 

Death was bodies wandering through a broken world. 

Death was plants that didn’t grow. 

Death was a radio flickering out. 

Death was a Colt shining in the light of a full moon. 

Death was blood draining out of a warm body. 

It hadn’t occurred to her that Death could be a blissful fade out. 

She wasn’t dying of starvation, she knew that. She’d eaten the last of the food a few days ago, and that wasn’t long enough to kill her, at least not yet. No, she was sick with something, something she’d caught easily because her body was hungry and her mind was tired. 

She hadn’t slept in days. Or maybe she had? That was the funny thing-- she didn’t know the difference anymore. At least she wasn’t having nightmares. No, she was lucky. When Quick wandered the vast limbo between waking and dreaming, she saw summertime and memories. She saw her grandparents again. When her grandmother smiled, it was real; it wasn’t the twisted shit she’d seen in her first nightmare. They offered their hands out to her. They laughed with her like they did when Quick was a child. She stood with her face to the sunlight, and she felt so warm. 

This, she thought, was better than being hungry. 

You can rest here, she thought. 

You get to die here, he said. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really excited about the next couple of chapters. Let me know what you think so far.


	9. A fox it was

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In The Woods Somewhere by Hozier

It had been a couple miles walk since he saw the first fence post. The land he traversed was someone’s definitely someone’s property, he just didn’t know who’s yet. Daryl Dixon hoped he’d be able to find them before they found him-- if they were alive, that is. It was entirely possible whoever lived here was dead or gone (not much difference between those two, he thought), and if that were the case, he would still be lucky to find whatever structure they’d been holed up in when they were here. 

The biting wind cut through his coat and water repellent poncho like needles. Winter was definitely here, regardless of the fact it hadn’t snowed once yet. He felt the most sorry for Dog, tracking alongside Daryl all this time with only fur to cover his hide. Daryl at least had a coat. Still, they needed shelter, and he was hoping that fence line was a sign he was close to finding it.

The sun was already gone, and the moon was high in the black sky offering what little light it could to guide his way. If Daryl didn’t have a feeling he was  _ so damn close _ , he would have set up camp and lit a fire already. It was too damn cold. 

“We ain’t sleepin’ outside, Dog, not one more night,” he muttered. 

The canine just sniffed and smacked his tail happily against the surrounding underbrush. 

It was that point in the night where it was too dark to track, but they weren’t just wandering either. Dog had taken it upon himself to loosely guide them deeper through the wooded area, and Daryl followed, occasionally shining a dying flashlight around to make sure they were still clear of walkers. 

Daryl heard Dog pick up his pace, taking off into the dark expanding in front of them. He barked once. Twice. Daryl shivered and hustled on to catch up. He turned on the flashlight. It flickered. Some twenty feet ahead, Dog was dancing around a mountain of sticks. This was a burn pile. 

Dog bounded up to Daryl, panting. Daryl looked over the scene in silent wonder before patting Dog’s head, saying, “Good boy.”

He rounded the unlit pile for himself. Part of it had collapsed, or fallen away. It was no longer a perfect circle. 

There were boot prints, small ones, much smaller than his, in the mud around it. Someone had been here recently. There was a tire track, too, but only one. What had one tire on it? Wheelbarrow maybe? There were two sets of it, one coming and one going. One heavy and one light. Carrying sticks no doubt. 

Dog stuck his snout in the misshapen part of the pile and dug into the ground under it. He shoved his snout in like he was reaching for something. Daryl came up beside him to investigate, and Dog left to check out something else. Under the sticks was a pool of blood. Walker blood. Someone had dumped a body here. 

Dog sniffed around before barking again from a distance. 

Daryl followed the nearby tire track to Dog who had his two front paws up against a tree. It’s side was covered in the same blood, thick and sticky like sap. Interesting. Daryl looked between the tree and the pile. Maybe the body had been human, and then turned. It probably got caught on something when it changed and brought down half the pile on itself. The blood was wet though, he thought. It got free only recently. 

Daryl felt the hair on his neck stand on end. There was a walker and a murderer out here with him, he needed to be careful. He flicked the flashlight off, concluding his investigation. 

Daryl and the canine opted to follow the boot prints for now instead of the walker for obvious reasons with the hope that they’d lead him to a shed or the house. Together, the survivors shuffled through the dark woods, one foot in front of the other, for a little while longer. Around them, critters skittered through the brush and branches through the black night. Daryl paid them no mind, but Dog seemed unusually distracted by it. He’d stop then go, then stop. His ears pricked up, listening. 

“What you hearin’, boy?” Daryl asked, still walking. 

Dog gave no indication nor answer. 

Then he took off running. 

“Shit.”

Daryl waited a moment for the stupid dog to come back, but he didn’t. The man hustled after him, letting out a string of more curses under his breath. He stumbled through the dark after Dog, deeper into the trees, perpendicular to the trail they were supposed to be following. Dog showed no sign of slowing down, he only let out the occasional short, gruff bark to let Daryl know his whereabouts. 

A stray cloud passed over the moon, and Daryl took the risk of turning on his flashlight. It flickered. Damn thing was gonna die. Dog came to a halt, staring in the distance. He barked once. Twice. He circled Daryl, looking up at him expectantly. He looked at the dog, confounded, before looking the direction Dog was indicating. 

He pointed his flashlight forward and squinted. There wasn’t anything--

In between the trees he saw it. A human body standing upright on two legs. A walker. From this distance it was hard to tell, but it looked female. It took one step. Two steps. It stopped. It swayed. It’s hands were at it’s sides, palms open. 

“Go get it, Dog,” Daryl nodded his head in the direction of the walker. 

Dog paced back and forth and whined. 

“Go get it,” he repeated. 

Dog barked once. That was a firm no.

Daryl traded the flashlight for his crossbow which he loaded and raised. Whatever, he could hit it from this distance himself. He breathed in, finger resting lightly on the trigger. He was about to exhale and squeeze, but Dog bolted forward suddenly and Daryl missed, hitting the tree beside it. 

Dog was on the walker in seconds, but the thing didn’t react at all. Daryl started cautiously approaching the bizarre sight, loading another bolt. Dog’s barks became erratic and constant, increasing the dread that mounted in Daryl’s stomach. Something wasn’t right. This thing wasn’t moving. Dog was planted on the other side of the walker, growling at something beyond it that the man couldn’t see. 

Over the canine’s feral threats, Daryl heard it. The deep groan and trudge of another walker. Daryl was twenty feet from the first walker when he saw it. Dog was firmly set between the female one and the new one, pacing back and forth between barks and growls. 

The new walker was a male, younger. His face was bruised and bloody. He was badly decomposed, older. A stick protruded from his abdomen. Daryl looked at the two creatures next to each other, his body making the connection before his conscious brain. The man switched his aim and exhaled. The bolt shot free and buried itself in the male walker’s skull. The thing dropped only a yard away from Dog. Walkers didn’t attack other walkers. 

Daryl took a few slow steps until he was in front of the female. Dog circled her knees before stopping to lick her hand. Daryl lowered the bow, and flicked on the flashlight again. 

Her eyes were green behind her curtain of auburn hair. They pierced him, unseeing, but they weren’t dead. She wasn’t dead. 

“Hey,” Daryl called gruffly. He whistled sharply but Dog didn’t budge from her side. 

The living woman’s pale skin reflected back in the light, and Daryl squinted. She didn’t blink. She didn’t move. It was like she was asleep on her feet. 

“The hell are you doin’ out here?” he asked. 

The man was close enough to hear her breath coming in slow, ragged cycles. She swayed on her bare feet. Daryl reached an arm out for the hand Dog was licking. His fingers brushed the inside of her wrist. Her skin was hot as fire against his frozen fingertips. He hissed and recoiled. 

She was sick. 

Daryl raised the crossbow again. She must have been bitten. Daryl beckoned Dog to back away from her again, but the stupid thing wouldn’t listen. The canine just gently nudged the girl in the leg with his nose. The woman was burning up with fever. She was going to die. Daryl’s spit turned thick in his mouth at the thought that he could just end her pain now. 

He took aim. 

She blinked, the green of her glassy eyes disappearing behind bruised eyelids for a moment, and Daryl froze. The woman inhaled sharply just before her eyes rolled back into her head and her body hit the cold ground. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> He's here.


	10. Cut me down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Don't You Cry For Me (Acoustic) by Cobi

Daryl didn’t do it. He couldn’t put a bolt nor blade through her head. 

After she collapsed, Dog softly pawed at her before laying down, chin on her chest. Daryl couldn’t move that stubborn, protective dog after that if the world depended on it. So here was Daryl Dixon, colder than all hell, hauling a dying woman through the woods in the middle of the night back to wherever she’d come from all because his dog  _ told _ him to. Fortunately, the woman’s bare feet had left a new trail for him to follow in the moonlight, so there was no need to double back for the wheelbarrow tracks. 

It wasn’t more than a few minutes before the trio broke through the tree line into an expanse of pasture. A couple acres away, Daryl could see a tall farmhouse, coupled with a garage and a red barn. The woman in his arms was sleeping fitfully, with her eyes closed this time, like a normal person. Her flushed face was creased in a frown, and she nuzzled into the shoulder of his coat. Her searing hot body warmed his whole front side. Him and his dog crossed the field. 

Daryl was exhausted by the time his heavy steps carried them past a barren garden and a water pump which he briefly took notice of. The man rounded to the front porch and hefted the girl tighter against his chest before hopping up onto the paint-chipped planks. 

The storm door was ajar. The front door was unlocked. 

He immediately noticed that the house was warmer inside than it was outside, the four walls effectively guarding them from the wind. All the shutters were closed over the glass, which helped. He walked through the nearest doorway into a kitchen, empty and picked over. A crates-worth of glass mason jars were strewn chaotically over the cooking surfaces, not a morsel in sight. The older-looking appliances gave the only indication that food had ever existed here. 

Moving on, Daryl passed through another doorway to the living room. He set the woman down on the couch and took off his pack so he could take a more thorough look around. The fireplace on one wall was cold and dark. On the wall hung a fox pelt and a coyote pelt, side-by-side. A TV was pushed to the corner, and framed photos rested on the mantelpiece. He heard Dog scamper behind him, but the sound fell on deaf ears. His attention was on the photos. 

An older couple standing together in front of a new house. A young man in the driver’s seat of a vintage muscle car with his thumb pressed up in the air, his young sweetheart leaning on the side of the hood next to him, her face spread in a wide smile. A little girl in overalls and pigtails holding up a sunfish on a fishing line. A young woman sandwiched in between the older couple. 

He looked behind him. It was her, hard as it was to tell. He knew it was her. 

She stirred. 

He remembered she was dying. 

Dog climbed up against the girl on the couch and laid his head down. 

“Traitor.”

Dog whined.

Daryl went upstairs. There was a first aid kit under the sink in the bathroom, most of it already picked over. A bottle of expired Tylenol with four pills left inside. A linen closet. He grabbed the towels and pills. 

He explored the bedroom. It was plainly decorated, the bed and a dresser were the only pieces of furniture present. Other than that, the place looked ransacked. Pillows, sheets, and blankets were strewn about the place. He grabbed the linens. 

Downstairs the girl was still sleeping. Dog dazedly licked her face now and again. Daryl dumped the towels, pills, and blankets into the floor before bracing himself to go back outside. He revisited the water pump. He found a bucket and filled it to the brim with ice-cold water. He went back inside. 

He set the bucket next to the couch and lit a couple candles, grouping them together so he had enough light to look the girl over. Daryl wasn’t much of a healer, but he figured he could at least check her over for bites. With a fever this bad, she must have one somewhere, right?

The man reached over Dog to inspect the girl. Every inch of her pale skin was scorching. He looked over her arms and her exposed legs. Her feet were bleeding slowly from wandering around outside. She had a new scar on her shoulder; it had been roughly sutured, but if he had to guess, it was from a bullet wound. Next, he lifted her shirt up to her ribcage. She was thin, but not skeletal, frail from not eating. He shuffled Dog out of the way long enough to roll her on her side, and felt around her back. Nothing. The woman was clean. She was in bad shape, but she didn’t have a bite on her. 

“Shit.”

The girl coughed, and Daryl started. She muttered something in her sleep. She was having fever dreams. 

In a way, he thought, she was lucky to be burning up. It was probably the only thing that kept her from catching hypothermia outside in the woods. Then again, the fever was probably the only reason she’d been outside in the first place. 

Daryl did the only thing he could think to do; he dipped one of the towels in the cold water and laid it on her forehead. That’s what people do to someone who’s got fever, right? Then, he waited. 

Daryl was asleep under a pile of blankets in the recliner when Dog woke him up. He looked over at the girl immediately and saw her eyes were open. Daryl got to his feet and looked her over. 

“Hey, you hear me?” he asked softly. 

Her eyelashes fluttered slightly, but her hazy vision didn’t seem to clear. Daryl went to the kitchen and grabbed a clean glass. He returned to her side and filled it from the bucket and put the rim of the glass against her lips. 

“Drink,” he said. 

Dog sat patiently next to the two of them. Eventually, the woman dipped her chin slightly, and took a mouthful of cool water. 

“All of it.”

Daryl didn’t move until she finished it. 

He dipped the towel in the bucket again and moved to lay it on her forehead. He was drawing his hand back when she snatched his wrist up in her small, lithe hand. She held on, keeping him just close enough that his fingertips could have brushed her cheek if he tried. 

“Did I kill you too?” she whispered in between ragged breaths. 

Even in the dark, Daryl could tell her eyes weren’t focusing on him. “No,” he said. 

“Are you my guardian angel then?” Her voice broke, and Daryl thought it was the saddest sound he’d ever heard. 

“If I am, I’m doing a shit job of it,” he grumbled. 

Her grip on his wrist loosened, and her eyes slid closed. Daryl let out a long sigh. He stood up. Outside the shutters, it was still dark out. He settled back into the recliner with a shiver. 

The next day her fever broke. 


	11. Trouble

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You Look Like Trouble- But I Guess I Do Too by Lisa Leblanc

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is long compared to the others so be warned.   
> The song for this chapter was the main inspiration for the fic as a whole, so you should definitely listen to it either before or after you read. Let me know what you think so far!

The woman didn’t wake up, but Daryl discovered her temperature had returned to normal by pressing a hand to her forehead. She needed the rest it seemed. He woke her every now and again to coax a glass of water down her throat and give her some food to nibble on, but each time, she went right back to sleep after finishing whatever he offered. Neither one spoke. 

While her body recovered from illness and apparent sleep deprivation, Daryl familiarized himself (respectfully) with her property. Having used the water pump the night before, he shifted his focus to the next necessity-- heat. They needed to start up that fireplace or they’d freeze in their sleep. While Dog stayed inside the house to watch over the woman, Daryl looked around the yard for a woodpile or anything to get a fire inside going. Eventually, he found the remains of one, but there wasn’t a lot there, definitely not enough to last a winter. He brought in a couple split logs, and made a mental note to come back and cut more soon, or walk out to the burn pile and haul back sticks. 

After he had a small fire going in the fireplace, he warmed up for a little bit and ate pieces of a granola bar he found at the bottom of his pack. He broke off a couple squares off the bottom to give to the woman when she woke up again. When he was ready, he went back outside, taking his crossbow with him. 

Hours passed before Daryl crossed the pasture to return to the house. When he did, he had a bundle of dry wood strapped to his shoulders and a pair of naked turkeys in his hands. He climbed onto the porch and ducked through the front door. The lower level of the house felt radically warmer than it had the night before or even that morning. In the kitchen, he made space to finish breaking down the birds on the countertop, and then moved to drop the bundle of wood next to the fireplace. The split log inside it had been slowly burning down since he left and was almost smoldering now, casting a soft glow on the glass inside the closed shutters. Behind him, the woman and Dog dozed together on the tattered couch. She had turned over in her sleep and now laid on her side with one arm thrown over the snoring canine. Daryl felt the corner of his mouth twitch up in a smirk at the silly animal. He knew what it was like to have that snoring monster in his face at night. 

After the fire was stoked slowly back to life, he went back to the kitchen to break down the turkeys. Daryl, the huntsman that he was, always made a point to use the whole animal, or at least as much of it as possible, when he cooked and cleaned them. He preferred most of the meat roasted or cured, but he saved giblets for Dog. This time, he thought, he might even make stock since he had water and the cookware for it. Eventually, the man got caught up in the familiar process of methodically breaking down an animal. 

In the other room, Quick was breathing deeply as she ebbed out of sleep. Her whole body felt heavy and warm, like a drop of liquid sunlight. Her fingers buried themselves in something soft. This, she thought, must be heaven. Slowly, she squinted one groggy eye open. Embers hissed in a fireplace. It was her fireplace. She was in her living room, on the couch. She breathed in, and she breathed out. Then, she remembered. 

If there was a heaven, it sure wasn’t going to look like this room, not after what she did. She squeezed her eyes shut, willing the sight to go away. She was still dreaming, she thought. It’s just a dream. Wake up! Her eyelashes lifted again, but the room was the same, firelight dancing on the walls. Soft. Heavy. 

She heard a snort, and Quick looked down startled. There was a mound of fur piled against her side. She gently flexed and stretched her fingers against it. The thing rolled against her ribs. The fur had eyes. Looking up at her was the most gorgeous dog she’d ever seen. 

Quick didn’t have a dog.

The animal yawned in her face, and Quick wrinkled her nose. This was a stinky dream. It opened its mouth and its tongue lolled out in an expression of laziness and contentment. Stinky but cute. He tried to stretch, but ended up digging a paw into the side of her belly. Instantly, her stomach twisted, and quick realized the uncomfortable sensation was from hunger more than it was pressure. 

Yearning for food washed over her and brought with it flickers of memories. Fatigue and lethargy, nausea from not eating which led to even less eating, nothing left to eat, drinking water and throwing it up, feeling hot, drifting off. Quick thought she had been dying. 

There was a low whistle and Quick watched distractedly as the dog crawled off the couch and out of sight. 

Daryl had the first turkey butchered into smaller pieces, and called Dog in to have a bite of giblet. He tossed the piece to Dog, but instead of catching it midair, he let it hit the ground by his furry feet. Daryl watched, confused, as Dog picked the piece of liver up gently in his mouth and carried it away into the other room. 

Quick watched from the couch as Dog trotted happily back into the living room. Bewildered, she let the canine climb back into her lap. He ducked his head and dropped something soft and wet into her lap. She looked at it and gagged. 

“Ew,” she mumbled. Her voice sounded hoarse and gravelly from sleep. 

Daryl froze when he heard the low voice in the other room. 

“‘The hell is that, dog?” 

Dog barked in recognition of his name, and Daryl left behind his butchering to go intervene. 

Quick’s face scrunched up as she gave the dog a look that said ‘really?’, and Dog just sat proudly as he waited for her to “accept” his gift to her. Movement in the corner of her eye had Quick changing focus to the kitchen doorway. 

A man came into view. He stood at a respectful distance and remained in the doorway, not crossing the line between the rooms. The ends of his long hair brushed the tops of broad shoulders which took up most of the space in the small door frame. His hands remained by his sides, fingertips twitching nervously. He looked like a wild man. 

The first thing Daryl noticed about the girl was her eyes. The verdant green raked over him, more clear and lucid than ever before, and he realized she was actually seeing him this time. He watched as her expression morphed from its previous disgust to surprise to fear before settling on a look he could only describe as distant. He shifted his weight between his feet and let his eyes flicker around the room just to avoid hers for a minute. Dog moved over to nudge Daryl’s hand with his snout and looked obliviously between the two humans. 

Quick realized her lips had parted slightly and immediately closed them. She forced herself to swallow despite the sticky dryness of her mouth. Tension rooted itself in her body, and wound its way through every muscle until she was tight as a coil. 

She broke the aching silence. 

“Are you going to kill me?” 

The question was no louder than a whisper; with the roughness of her voice, the sound reminded Daryl of dry grass rustling in a breeze. 

“Nah,” he mumbled. “If I wanted you dead, you’d be dead already.”

Her eyes widened, and Daryl immediately cringed inside at the way that must have sounded. 

“You were sick with somethin’,” he explained. “Been asleep for days.”

Quick processed his words and pieced together his meaning: This man had taken care of her. Her distrust didn’t waver, but the coil in her spine loosened minutely. She watched as the dog nudged his hand again and silently wished the creature would come back over to her side. 

“Who are you?” she asked warily. 

“Daryl,” he said, “This is Dog.”

The tension shattered. “You named your dog ‘Dog’?”

“Why not?” he asked, somewhat defensive. “What’s yours?” 

Quick looked down, suddenly shy. “Quick.”

Daryl snorted and tilted his head. “And you think  _ his _ name’s weird,” he grumbled. 

Cautiously, Quick picked up the piece of gizzard and tossed it to Dog who caught it midair with a swift snap of his jaws. He bounded up onto the couch and rested his head in her lap, thumping his tail on the cushions with an accomplished sort of pleasure. Her hand automatically fell on his soft head. 

Daryl’s lips parted in the smallest of smirks. That damn dog was a traitor. 

Her eyes met the man’s again and felt something like static electricity shock all the way to her toes. Daryl glanced away, seeming to remember the situation they were in. 

He turned his back to her and returned to his butchering. 

“Hey, where do you think you’re going?” she called out, leaning forward in her seat. 

He leaned on the doorway. “Do you wanna eat or not?”

Quick’s brain short circuited at the mention of food. 

“Eat?” she wondered aloud. 

Daryl jutted his thumb behind him at the kitchen. “I got two turkeys in here, do you want some or not?”

Quick’s mouth shut. 

Not half an hour later, Daryl was roasting sections of a turkey in her fireplace. She kept careful eyes on him all the while petting Dog’s sweet head. Quick had never had a dog, but always wanted one. This wasn’t exactly how she’d imagined ending up with an animal in her house, but it was nice. Something about him put her at ease. 

That being said, she didn’t trust his owner, not yet anyways. Something about him put her off. He was tall and strong, bigger than Jude had been. Even crouched under her hearth, he seemed taught as a wire. He looked like a dangerous man, like somebody who’d seen some shit and done some things. She didn’t need to ask; she already knew. Quick thought briefly about what had happened to the last man who’d stood in her living room and realized she was just as dangerous, whether or not Daryl knew so. She’d killed someone too, she thought bitterly, and that made her and Daryl equal. Sinners. 

The man in question felt her eyes on him the whole time he was cooking. He understood that she didn’t trust him (hell, he wouldn’t trust him either) but it was starting to make his hair stand on end, and his nerves were frayed. Daryl wasn’t used to people... looking at him. And she had the kind of emerald gaze that could pin a man down. 

Daryl couldn’t avoid her forever, unfortunately. After a few more minutes, he twisted around to face the room and said, “‘s ready.”

He leaned over to hand her a plate. An arm’s length away, this was the closest they’d been to each other all night. Her pulse quickened at the close quarters. She hadn’t been this near to someone else since-- She leaned back into the couch cushions with the plated turkey leg. 

Her wandering thoughts eased the more she tasted of her food. Her stomach had shrunk, and she couldn’t eat much of it; but what she did eat, she ate with pleasure. When she was satisfied, she picked off pieces and gave them to Dog. 

Daryl hid behind his curtain of hair and watched her tear apart the meat with her fingertips, in her own world as juice ran down her chin. He could see the relief slowly paint across her face until she’d eaten all she could. He ate his own food quietly. It was good, he thought, but it didn’t beat squirrel. 

A log snapped in the fireplace, and a couple of golden ashes floated out. Quick’s eyes followed their descent. When the ashes turned gray and kissed the floor, her gaze focused on the man just behind them. He was still chewing, but his eyes were on Quick’s fingers which Dog licked clean. She hugged the blanket tighter around her shoulders and let the creature gnaw on her hand. 

Daryl caught a hint of guilt wash over her face before she caved and looked away. Daryl frowned to himself, and tense silence settled in the air between them. He wasn’t good with words, but quiet like this was different than the kind he was used to being on his own. Quiet between two people was different. 

She spoke so softly he almost didn’t hear her. “Thank you.”

Daryl grunted. 

“You didn’t have to feed me, but you did, so thank you.” She didn’t look at him as she spoke.

“You didn’t have to let me stay,” he said dismissively after a thoughtful pause. “Could’ve kicked me out the second you woke.” 

The woman looked back to him. Quick understood what Daryl was trying to say. He had something to be thankful for too. 

“Who said I won’t kick you out now?” she tested him. 

Outside their windows, night had fallen. The temperature was dropping, and it would be a pain in the ass to move on and make camp now. 

“Shit,” Daryl muttered to himself. 

Quick heard it, and her pulse picked up. This is when the outburst came, an argument, a fight for shelter and warmth that ended in blood and gore. She steeled herself in anticipation. 

“We’ll go,” Daryl said. 

Her eyes widened. “What?” 

“It’s your house,” he shrugged. 

She paused, exhaled sharply in disbelief and then said to herself, “Yeah, it is.”

Daryl’s frown increased. The words didn’t make sense to him, but somewhere in Quick’s mind they meant something more. Her fingers traced Dog’s ears as he dozed in her lap. Daryl followed the mindless shapes with his eyes.

“I was gonna die here,” she confessed, almost disappointed. 

Daryl shook his head. “Nah, you weren’t. You were gonna die out there.”

“What do you mean?” Her eyebrows pinched together. 

He shifted in his seat by the fire. “We found you in the woods, delirious with fever,” he said. “You don’t remember nothing?”

Quick didn’t know what to say. She remembered the warmth, the light; she thought she was dying, that she’d finally feel peace again. Was none of that real? Instead of answering, she asked, “You brought me back here?” 

“Followed your trail to the house.”

“How did you know I wasn’t bit?”

Daryl’s ears turned pink. 

“I checked.”

“Oh,” she whispered. Now it was her turn to flush pink. The awkward pause that followed seemed to last an eternity. Finally, Quick asked, “Why did you do it? Help me?”

Daryl couldn’t fight the guilt that flooded him. The truth was that he hadn’t wanted to help; he’d almost put her down. That was his sin to live with… but it didn’t mean he had to share it with her. Eventually, he answered, “It doesn’t matter. I just did it… Besides, Dog likes you.”

Dog twitched in his sleep. Quick smiled. 

“He’s a good boy,” she said. 

“Yeah, he is,” Daryl agreed. “He protected you out there, you know.”

Quick’s hands stilled in the animal’s fur. 

“Another walker came out, and he got between you. Made me realize what you were.” 

Daryl licked his lips nervously. Quick saw it in his face, the same thing she saw in her own face all the time. He felt so damn guilty. 

“Thank you,” she whispered again. “For not letting me die out there.”

Daryl shrugged nervously. “Couldn’t let you turn into one of those things.”

Quick’s stomach turned. 

“What...?”

Daryl’s face fell. He thought of the body on the burn pile, the walker. He realized she didn’t know. Rick had learned it at the CDC. Daryl had learned it from Rick. Other people in groups just figured it out the ugly way. Quick was alone. She didn’t know. He cleared his throat before explaining. 

“Whatever it is that turns ‘em, we’ve all got it. The virus or whatever. When we die, we become one of them.” 

“So I would have….”

Quick’s world turned upside down. How many times since killing Jude had she wished for death? For peace? God, she was so stupid to think she’d be that lucky. If she had died like she’d wished, she wouldn’t be any better off than she was now, not really. Dead on her feet. And Jude, she’d stabbed him in the back. She’d dragged him out to a pyre, and he’d changed. He could still be out there. He would come for her, just like the others, when she screamed in her sleep and dreamt of his face. 

Daryl thought he felt guilty before, but watching the heartbreak cover her face made him feel like a bad man, tenfold. How hadn’t she known? The woman began to unravel right in front of him. Her breathing got heavier, and her eyes unfocused. 

“Shit.”

Daryl got up from where he’d been sitting this whole time. 

“You gotta breathe, girl.”

He didn’t want to get too close, but she wasn’t slowing down. She was totally disassociating. 

“Quick. Quick.” He knelt on the floor in front of her. Dog was awake now, watching on with concern. “Quick, you gotta breathe.”

In between breaths, he realized she was muttering something to herself, the words impossible to make out. He leaned his ear towards her. 

_ He’s coming.  _

“Damn it, girl, I killed him,” he said. He said it over and over until she started to come down. His hands were wrapped around her biceps, and she breathed heavily but slowly in and out. Dog paced behind him. 

“I killed him.”

Quick’s green eyes focused on his face. From this close, she caught the scent of woodsmoke and tobacco cigarettes off his clothes. 

“He’s gone. He was the other walker. I killed him in the woods.”

Her wet eyelashes fluttered. “How did you know?”

“I figured it out,” he said. “Saw the sticks before I saw you and knew there’d been a body dumped out there. I didn’t realize you didn’t know.”

“He was going to kill me,” she whispered, holding back a sob. “He wanted all this, so he tried to kill me.” 

“It’s okay,” Daryl said, not knowing what else would comfort the woman. 

“So I killed him first,” she said. “Right here.” She pointed to the living room floor and shook. 

“Then, let’s move,” he said. 

Quick frowned, confused. 

“Fuck this room. Let’s move. You don’t wanna be in here, then you don’t have to.”

Daryl was picking up blankets and his coat. Dog paced around, excited by all the commotion. Quick looked on helplessly, drained from her episode. 

“C’mon,” he jerked his head in the direction of the kitchen. 

Quick climbed to her feet. Her whole body ached, and she swayed. A blanket was wrapped tight around her shoulders. Daryl was dumping everything he’d gathered up in the empty room between the kitchen and the bottom of the stairs. It was a tight space but it was close enough to the fireplace to still be warm, without being crowded in the messy kitchen. Quick followed. Her eyes drifted over the kitchen as she passed through it. Two turkey carcasses. A hunting knife. A crossbow. The wild man’s handiwork. He didn’t reach for any of it. He was so focused on getting her out of that room. She let him take the lead and followed like a child. She lowered herself onto the floor and buried herself under another quilt. 

Daryl let her settle. He wasn’t good with cryin’ women (or women in general). He felt stupid and guilty and at his wits end. He leaned back against the wall and slid down until he was sitting. He watched the woman’s eyes slide closed and prayed she’d fall asleep so he could catch his goddamn breath. 

Quick felt exhaustion slam into her. Her whole body felt so heavy, and her heart ached. Despite the fatigue, she cracked one eye open. Daryl was sitting with his elbows on his knees, head in his hands. 

“You gonna stay,” she murmured, “knowing what I did?”

Daryl looked up. He could tell she was already shutting down, the need for rest becoming too much for her body to resist. He recognized it because he felt it in his body too. 

“Yeah,” he grunted. 

“You ain’t scared of me?” 

“Nah,” he shook his head, “you look like trouble, but I can handle trouble.”

Quick sniffled, and more tears slipped down her cheeks in the darkness. Dog settled in the space between the two humans. Neither one spoke after that, and when Daryl was sure she was asleep, he let the same darkness consume him. 


	12. Patience

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Patience by The Lumineers

The two of them didn’t discuss her panic attack, the woods, the man Quick (and Daryl, technically) killed, or the living room again after that night. It went without saying that Daryl and Dog would hide out at Quick’s house until the cold season passed as long as they followed her rules. Quick’s house rules were pretty basic. Daryl brought back whatever he hunted for the two of them to share. No crossbows or dirty boots on the table. Any “food prep” happened on the butcher’s block, no animal carcasses on the living room floor. The upstairs of the house was casually off limits, the only rooms being the master bedroom, Quick’s childhood bedroom, and the bathroom; and the third story was an attic, where Quick’s grandparents’ belongings were stored since they’d passed away. None of it was well-heated or worth exploring. 

The days passed with very little conversation between the pair, neither one the talkative type, but Quick no longer felt uncomfortable around him. The first week had been the hardest. Quick felt so small next to his silent, intimidating figure; she thought any moment he might turn around and eat her up like the big bad wolf, but the fear gradually faded. She realized he wasn’t mean, he just didn’t have a lot to say. And as tough as he was, he never did anything to hurt her. In fact, it was often the opposite. The man looked out for her in his own reserved way. He would leave in the morning and come back with something to eat by afternoon, giving Quick some time alone in her house. Sometimes he left Dog behind to keep her company. He was always respectful of her house and her rules, accepting her authority, which surprised her considering that he radiated dominance. He did little tasks for her without asking. Eventually, she dare say, they built some trust. 

Quick wasn’t the only one who felt a change in the house. Daryl was an observant man, and he could see the way the woman was healing on the outside. She was growing stronger, largely because he’d been providing good food for them, and she didn’t look nearly as unhealthy as the night he’d found her. She had a sweet color in her cheeks more often than not. (At first, Daryl thought she was just blushing or that she was still feverish, but he soon realized it hardly faded.) He noticed she was a hard worker too. She cleaned up after them, did laundry, cut wood, made butter, took care of her old-ass goat. She was like a little pioneer, he thought. 

The two things Daryl wouldn’t let her do was haul water or kill walkers. Winter had slowed down the walkers, and they didn’t pass so close to the house like they used to, but Daryl made a point to set traps for them in the woods and keep them as far from the house and barn as possible. At night, when they camped in the front room, he stayed up an extra couple of hours to take out the ones who wandered in before Quick woke up. As for the water, Daryl didn’t know why he hauled water for her. She had the strength to now, it wasn’t like she couldn’t haul it herself, but every morning he woke up and went to the water pump and brought in a bucket and their canteens. 

And so each day, when Quick opened her eyes, Daryl was already gone, and she had a whole pail of water to do with as she pleased. It was unexpected, but nice. 

Today, she was using it to clean dishes, and maybe later, she would take an actual bath. 

One thing that she hadn’t expected about being around another person was the smell. Quick hadn’t cared about the way she smelled as much when she was alone, and she’d go a while without bathing. Now, she smelled herself with new sensitivity. (Not that Daryl seemed like the kind of person to take notice of body odor; half the time he smelled as bad as Dog.) But it mattered to Quick. She didn’t like feeling self-conscious or dirty. 

The dishes were finished, and the water was swimming with grime. She shrugged on her coat and scarf and hat so she could dump the pail and get new water. When she opened the front door, she was greeted with a horrific sight that was most unexpected. Daryl was standing in the doorway with a buck slung over his shoulders, covered head to toe in gore. 

He cleared his throat awkwardly. 

“Holy hell. What happened to you?”

“There was a situation,” the man grumbled. 

“Is that what that’s called?”

Dog barked. 

“You gonna let me in? It’s freezing out here.”

“Not like that, hell no. Give me a minute.”

She stepped out and closed the door behind her. Daryl shifted the buck off his back and set it on the porch. She leaned over the railing and chucked the water into the frosty yard. She headed towards the stairs. 

“Where are you goin’?” Daryl called after her. 

She answered over her shoulder. “Getting water. You’re taking a bath.”

Daryl walked after her. His legs were longer than Quick’s and he was beside her in a few strides. “You don’t gotta do that,” he said. 

“I was gonna take one anyways, but you need it more than I do,” she insisted, not slowing down. The wind blew her long hair around her face. 

He took the bucket from her hands, and cut her off. “You don’t gotta do that. I’ll get it. Go back inside,” he said. 

She looked indignant for a moment, but a crisp wind cut through her clothes and made her shiver. She conceded. “Fine,” she jabbed him in the chest, “but you’re stripping on the porch.”

Daryl huffed and turned back towards the water pump. 

“And you’ll need more than one bucket,” she called after him. 

He met her at the door, and she carried the pails up to the tub, save for one which she boiled on the stove in a stock pot. When the tub was full enough for a bath, she stayed true to her word and made him lose his clothes on the porch. He took off the poncho and coat first. She gave him a look, and he shivered. He shucked off his boots and peeled off his pants next. 

Quick’s nose and ears were pink. He stood there in a long-sleeved henley and his underpants. 

“Shirt too,” she said. “My house, my rules.”

“Nah,” he answered.

“It’s got holes in it.” 

“I’ll take it off inside,” he said. “It’s fucking cold.”

“Fine,” she stepped to the side, and he was upstairs in a flash. 

She shuffled into the kitchen with the dirty laundry and piled it into the sink for lack of a better place to put it. It would also need to soak in boiling water if there was any chance of it coming remotely clean. 

When Daryl was sure Quick was out of sight, he stripped off his shirt and threw it to the bottom of the stairs like a messy teenage boy. He closed the bathroom door tight behind him, and sunk into the steaming water. He would never admit it, but it felt fucking good to take a bath. 

Quick came out of the kitchen and saw the henley on the floor. She smirked. Picking it up, she looked it over. It was the least bloody article of clothing, but that didn’t mean it didn’t require some attention. There were little rips and tears all over it, she wondered how it even stayed on his body anymore it was so threadbare. She went up to her bedroom and got out the sewing box. It didn’t take her long to have most of it fixed up. Dog sat on the floor watching her work, head cocked. 

“What?” she asked him. 

He cocked his head to the other side. 

“Yeah, right,” she muttered. 

Daryl was almost clean when he heard a soft knock on the bathroom door. 

“Yeah?” 

The door creaked open and Daryl stiffened. Quick’s arm slithered through the gap, shirt in hand, and Daryl relaxed fractionally. She dropped it blindly on the floor and promptly closed the door. 

Quick leaned against the closed door and said, “I tried my best. The rest of it will need to soak so I hope you have another pair of pants.”

She heard the water splash followed by the sound of his gruff voice. “I got another in my pack.”

“Want me to bring it to you?”

“Nah, I can get it.”

“You remember where the towels are?” she asked. 

“Yeah,” he answered. 

“Okay.” She lingered for a second longer before she disappeared down the stairs. 

Daryl sighed out the breath he’d been holding and sunk deeper into the water. His eyes snagged on the shirt on the floor. Swearing under his breath, he pushed off the sides of the tub and stood up. Water cascaded down his body, and he retrieved a towel. Wrapping it around his waist, he picked up the tattered shirt and looked it over. Tiny, neat stitches covered every nick and hole in the thing. She tried her best, he echoed. Well, her best was pretty damn good. His fingers traced the perfect mending. He needed to learn that. Once, he was dried off, he shrugged the piece of clothing back over his body. Some of the new seams puckered as the fabric pulled over his broad shoulders, but it held strong and true. The little lines looked like scars over the weaving. No doubt some of them aligned with the ones on his skin. 

Towel still wrapped around his waist, his bare feet padded down the stairs to his pack which sat in the corner of the room he and Quick camped in at night. He pulled out a pair of heavy cargo pants and yanked them up his legs. 

Outside, the sun was starting to set and the stars faded into view like freckles on the sky. Firelight from the other room bounced up the walls. 

In the kitchen, Daryl’s crossbow leaned against the leg of the table. Quick stood up to her elbows in hot, bloody water. The man leaned against the doorway. Quick caught him in the corner of her eye and offered him a shy smile. She wiped off her hands with a raggedy towel. 

“You look much better,” she said. 

“Thanks,” he said, turning a little pink. “The shirt looks good.” He stretched out an arm, showing off the sleeve. 

Quick chuckled under her breath. Dog trotted into the room and nudged Quick on the side of her thigh with his nose. They looked at each other for a moment too long, and Quick ducked her head, running a hand over Dog’s ears. Even clean, he still looked like a wild man. It was the hair, she thought.

“Sorry I made you strip on the porch.”

Daryl was pink down to his collar now. “Your house, your rules,” he choked out. 

She hummed in agreement. “Now we’re even,” Quick teased. 

Daryl’s brain flared with flashes of a memory-- the feeling of her hot skin under his hands the night he looked her over for walker bites. 

He felt like a bad man. 

“Your buck needs your attention,” Quick said. 

“My what?”

Quick pointed to the deer which she’d more or less dragged into the house. Daryl looked it over, before grunting in understanding. She handed him his hunting knife handle first, and brushed past him to retrieve a blanket out of the floor where she slept. Daryl snuck glances at her as she pulled it round her shoulders and went into the living room to stoke the fire. 

He broke down the deer. The buck would last them a while, he thought. He was lucky to have found it when he did, that is, before the walkers got to it. He didn’t want to say, but the group he had seen was bigger than what had passed through before. They’d blended in well with the trees and he’d been caught off guard. He fired his crossbow at one, but didn’t have time to reload before the next one was on him. He’d buried his knife in it, but it slipped out of his hands when the walker fell away, leaving him unarmed against the next five. He’d eventually killed the rest of them with blunt force trauma and raw, skull-crushing upper body strength, leading to him marching home covered in brain matter smoothie. 

In the other room, Quick was pushing around coals to agitate a flame. Daryl could hear her humming under her breath as he cut the deer into pieces, throwing some of them into a pan to stew over the fire for a little while. The sound gave him a whisper of a feeling in his chest, one that he could only describe as admiration for the girl. She was a tough girl. Trouble, he thought. After the first night, he was scared she would burst into tears by just looking at the living room, but she never did. She would enter, stoke the fire, cook over it, and when they were done, they settled back into their makeshift campsite. He felt a little bad they couldn’t just use the stove, but there wasn’t another option. That fireplace was their best bet for hot food and warm bodies. 

He entered and knelt beside her to put the pan over the campfire rack they’d rigged to use as a stovetop. 

The pan started to heat up, and the stew bubbled. 

Quick leaned back and curled up in the busted recliner chair with her blanket wrapped around her narrow shoulders. Sometimes when she made herself small like this, she looked like a kid to Daryl. He shook his head at himself. No, she was a grown up, younger than him by ten years give or take, but she was a woman. She was tough and could take care of herself. So why did Daryl catch himself doing so much for her? Originally, he was trying to earn his keep, earn her trust, get the girl he found in the woods healthy again. Now, it was like he couldn’t stop himself. 

He shook his head again and his hair fell in his eyes. 

“I can cut it if you want?”

Daryl looked over at Quick, confused. 

“I’ve been cutting my own hair for a long time, I could do yours too,” she said, shrugging her shoulders. “It can’t be easy to see with all that hanging in your eyes.”

“I like it long,” he said, running his hand on the back of his neck reflexively. 

Quick hummed and turned her eyes to the floor. Daryl realized she thought he was rejecting her offer. 

“It could be cleaned up a little,” he said. 

Quick sat up a little straighter. “Yeah?”

“Sure.” 

He turned back to the pan of venison. Maybe he wasn’t the only one taking care of somebody. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My grandma taught me how to sew when I was a kid. We did a lot of hand sewing together before I learned to use a machine. She always told me how impressed she was with the tiny, neat stitches.


	13. Face to face

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Devil In You by The Haunted Windchimes

Quick was in the living room. It was dark, and the shutters were closed. The fire wasn’t lit. It felt strange to her, but she couldn’t place why. She looked around herself. 

“Daryl?” she called. “Dog?”

There wasn’t an answer. 

She moved to the kitchen doorway and stepped over the threshold. She was back in the living room. 

Quick paused and looked around. She shook her head. 

She tried to walk through the doorway again. She was back in the living room. 

What was she supposed to do? Why was she here?

“Daryl?” Her voice was louder this time. There was still no answer. 

Quick saw something out of the corner of her eye. She turned to face it. She turned again. There was nothing but shadows. On the wall next to the fireplace hung two coyote pelts and one fox. 

There was hot breath on the back of her neck. “Kneel.”

Quick blinked and was on her knees. 

She blinked again and he was inches from her face. His voice was Jude’s but his face was like a walker. 

“Wake up,” he whispered.

The knife was in her hands. 

His weight was crushing her body. 

“Wake up!”

  
  


Quick was sitting up in a flash. Her breaths came in heavy rapid gasps. She struggled hard against him.

“You’re okay. You’re okay.” 

It was pitch dark, and she couldn’t see him at all, but she felt him in front of her. His hands were on her arms. She could smell his shirt, woodsmoke and cigarettes. Her hands fluttered in front of her, trying to find him in the dark. Her fingertips eventually met his collarbone, and she felt the ends of his hair against them. His hair was shorter now. 

“Sorry,” she whispered. “I’m sorry.”

“You’re okay,” he said. 

“I woke you up.” It wasn’t a question. Daryl didn’t answer it. 

“You were calling our names,” he said. “Me and Dog.”

“I’m sorry... I haven’t-- I used to--” 

He knew what she was trying to say. She hadn’t had a nightmare like that since he started living there. 

Dog started barking frantically, and outside, a walker growled. Quick moved to stand up. “I’ll get it.” 

“Nah, I got it,” Daryl said, pulling away to find his boots. 

She reached out blindly and caught his wrist. “Please,” she whispered. “They came for me.” 

Her eyes glistened, even in the dark, and Daryl couldn’t say no to that gaze. He pressed his own combat knife into her hands, and she put her shoes on. She stepped onto the porch. From inside, Daryl heard her grunt and swing and the growling stopped. The body dropped. She came back inside. She took off her boots and settled back onto her makeshift bedroll. Daryl sat across from her with his back against the wall and his legs stretched out in front of him to keep watch for a while. In her roll, Quick pretended to fall back asleep, but he knew from experience that she wouldn’t be able to. She wouldn’t let herself. 

Dog wasn’t settling either. The animal paced back and forth in the cramped space between them, agitated by the threat of walkers. Quick’s eyes followed him, hypnotized. Daryl watched him too, in a more impatient manner. How was Quick supposed to sleep with a dog walking all over her? The third time Dog stepped across his lap, narrowly missing his balls underfoot, Daryl grabbed him by the paws and with a commanding “c’mon” forced the creature to lay down between them. Dog rolled a little until he was closer to Quick and out of Daryl’s grip. A couple minutes passed and Quick’s arm slung over Dog’s body affectionately in the dark. 

The corner of Daryl’s lips almost quirked up in a smile. Almost. 

“I used to get them all the time,” Quick murmured so lowly he almost missed it. “The biters would hear me screaming from the woods and come right up to the house. I would wait for them.” 

Daryl nodded even though she couldn’t see him. 

“It’s always the same,” she continued. “I don’t get to wake up until I’ve killed him.”

Daryl didn’t know the man, he didn’t know what specifically had happened, but he knew what this world was like. He knew the kinds of things people did to survive. He thought of all the bad men he’d fought against before, and the things they had tried to take from him. He didn’t need to guess what that was like. 

“You did what you had to do,” he said. 

“Does it ever go away? The guilt?”

There was a long pause while Daryl thought of his answer. The men he’d killed were no one to feel guilty over. Much like Quick, he’d simply beat them to what they’d been planning to do to him, in order to protect himself, to protect his family. But Daryl felt guilty about a lot of other things. He felt guilty for not being able to save everybody. He felt guilty for pushing the people who loved him away. He felt so guilty that he’d left them all behind to wander a rural wasteland with a dog as his only companion, because the only person he was any good at keeping safe after all was himself. 

“You get used to it,” he finally said. It was an honest answer, albeit not a very comforting one, but he couldn’t tell her it would go away or get more bearable. She could only learn to live with it. 

Quick sighed softly in the dark. “It’s too easy now, killing walkers, killing people in this world.”

“It’s us or them,” Daryl argued, shaking his head. 

“... but what’s the difference between him and me if we're both saying the same thing... trying to survive?” Quick rolled onto her back to stare at the black ceiling. 

“You did what you had to do,” he repeated firmly. “You don’t have to like it; you just have to live with it.”

Quick mulled over his words in her head. She hadn’t wanted to live with it. There was a part of her that thought she deserved to die for what she’d done. That same part of her had led her out to die in the woods in the heat of fever instead of fading away in her sweet home. But how do you explain that to another person? How do you tell another person that you’re too afraid of yourself to live? She couldn’t, so she kept her mouth closed and, instead, chose to listen to Dog softly snore until she drifted back to sleep. 

  
  


“Gone hunting, be back later.” 

That’s what the note on the kitchen table said when Quick woke up the next day. 

The walker Quick had left on the porch the night before was gone, removed never to be seen again. Dog wasn’t around, and neither was the hunter. It was weird. Daryl didn’t leave notes. Something about it made Quick’s stomach turn. She spent the rest of the day on edge. When the sun started to set, and he still hadn’t returned, she considered going after him, but she had no way of tracking him. She wasn’t a hunter. All she could do was wait helplessly for him to come back. 

If he came back at all. 

Quick tried to push that thought away. He wouldn’t leave a note that said he would come back if he wasn’t planning on coming back. It wasn’t a goodbye, and even if it was, why would it bother her so much? He had no obligation to her, and she had no obligation to him. He could leave whenever he wanted. She would survive without him. That didn’t stop her from worrying though. 

Her thoughts continued to spiral until late in the night. She left the candles in the kitchen burning while the fire blazed low in the living room. Her head ached with fatigue, but it wasn’t enough to make her sleep. Why wasn’t he back yet? How much was “later” in his mind?

It was mere hours from sunrise when Quick heard a sound coming from outside the house. Heavy footsteps under the kitchen window. She was on her feet and opening the front door before she could bat an eyelash. Stepping up onto the end of the front porch was Daryl, Dog following faithfully behind him. He was carrying something in his arms, a piece of canvas thrown over it to obscure her view. 

Dog trotted happily up to Quick who let her fingers run over his ears before he walked into the house like he owned it. Daryl’s eyes met hers and a myriad of cryptic emotions passed between. All her worry faded into a unique shade of irritation at the sight of him. She fixed him with her best impression of the withering stare her grandmother used to give her grandfather. 

Her green eyes pinned him in place like a knife to the throat. Something about her stance was familiar to him, reminded him of someone he used to know, but he couldn’t place who. She’s mad at you, he registered faintly.

“Gone hunting, be back later?” she asked. 

He never was much good with words, but hearing his own thrown back at him made him feel like a dumb son of a bitch. 

“Later?” she emphasized. 

“I didn’t think you’d be waiting up for me,” he muttered. 

At least he has the decency to look a  _ little _ sheepish, Quick thought. Some of her frustration dissipated, but she kept her face stern. “I thought something happened to you.”

“I can handle myself.” Daryl shifted on his feet, switching his hold on the covered crate. 

Quick seemed to notice his burden for the first time. “That doesn’t look like game.”

“You gonna let me in?” he grumbled. 

Quick frowned at the dry sarcasm in the question, but stepped aside so he could enter anyways. She followed him closely to the kitchen, giving him suspicious gazes as he set the box on the table. He took the canvas off the top of the crate and revealed its contents. 

“You still mad, Trouble?” he asked. 

Four jars of preserved peaches and an unopened bottle of whiskey. 

“Where the hell did you find this?” she asked, pulling out each jar to inspect it. She was impressed, but she didn’t want him to know that just yet. 

“It’s a little gift from your neighbors.”

“My neighbors?” she looked at him, frowning again. “Their cabin’s miles away.”

“No shit. That’s why it took so long,” he said. 

Quick fixed him with a disapproving glare. “I could have told you that, if you’d asked. Why were you even out there?”

“Doesn’t matter. I just was.” He grabbed the bottle of whiskey out of her hands. “I’ll eat ‘em myself if you don’t want any.” He swaggered away into the living room. 

“Oh, no, you don’t.” 

She cut him off at the doorway and snatched the whiskey back from him. Daryl looked vaguely offended by the action, but she didn’t back down. They stood almost chest to chest in the gap between rooms-- Quick was momentarily distracted by the height difference. He was almost a head taller than her, and she had to tilt her chin up to meet his eyes. 

“We’re gonna share it,” she said, “tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” He scoffed. “Why wait?”

“Because. My house, my rules.” Quick knew those four little words were all it would take for Daryl to back down. It was a dirty move, but one she made nonetheless. 

“That’s cheatin’,” he said, reading her mind.

She smirked knowingly and cocked her hip slightly, letting the heavy bottle rest at her side. Daryl shook his head, and pushed past her to enter the living room. 

“Where do you think you’re going?” she asked. 

“Sleeping in here. Don’t wanna share a room with a fucking dictator.”

Quick scoffed at him. If you’d told Quick the day she met Daryl that someday they’d be having a petty argument over whiskey and canned peaches, she’d have laughed in your face. Hell, if you’d told her twenty four hours ago that they’d be arguing over whiskey and canned peaches, she still would have laughed in your face. That was before she realized Daryl was the most confusing man she’d ever met. 

Quick looked between the kitchen and the living room for a minute, still clutching the bottle at her side. 

“No,” she said. The stubbornness in her own tone surprised her. 

Daryl, who was already stretched out on the couch, opened one eye to look at her, also surprised. 

“You ain’t getting the couch,” she said, pointing at his figure. 

He unfolded his arms and gestured, saying, “I’m already here.”

“And I’m a dictator, remember?”

If Daryl weren’t so inconvenienced by her sudden change in attitude, he would have found it amusing. He got up off the couch. 

They switched places, and she settled down on the sofa. He looked at her from the doorway, incredulous. Dog who had been lapping water out of a bowl in the kitchen floor, trotted in and immediately snuggled up to Quick. She raised her eyebrows at the man and he scoffed at her. 

“Traitor,” he whispered under his breath. 

As he settled down to sleep in the other room, alone for the first time in weeks, he finally let the corner of his mouth turn up in a little grin. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you think? I'm still new to this whole slow burn thing so feedback (positive or negative) would be greatly appreciated.


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